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Simon Hunter is one of FOUNDATION’s success stories. He has struggled with addiction for over 20 years. On his last release from prison Simon entered into treatment and was prescribed an opiate replacement medication.

According to the Men’s Health Forum (https://www.menshealthforum.org.uk) this year it is all about the belly fat. Men’s Health Week 2017 – which runs from June 12-18 – is about abdominal obesity – better known as ‘belly fat’.

Belly fat is a particular problem in men that is particularly bad for your health and men are more likely to have it.

Foundations, based in Queen Street in Grimsby, provides drug and alcohol support services in North East Lincolnshire. Here, Volunteer & Peer Mentor Coordinator, Lucy explains the benefits of their allotment as part of recovery.

It has been just over a year since Care Plus Group's Intermediate Care at Home and the Crisis Support Service were accredited with Care Quality Commission (CQC) Outstanding. And what a time that was for the team. But, the last few months of enjoying the accreditation was just a momentary pit stop! The service needs to remain on the road of ‘continued improvement, change and innovation’ if we are to reach ‘Destination Outstanding’ at our next inspection.

When you think of yoga you may think of seemingly impossible positions you need to contort your body, or perhaps you have dismissed it as a new age fad carried out by somewhat flaky people. But what about yoga as a treatment for addiction?

There are so many happy things that we plan for in our life, a holiday, a wedding, a new birth but so little time is given to planning our end of life.

8th May sees the start of the annual Dying Matters Awareness week, this year’s message is ‘What Can you do’. Social Media will become very active within this week, with the hashtag #Whatcanyoudo as every day during Dying Matters week there will be a Tweetchat with a different theme relating to the end of life and bereavement.

Despite having done quite a lot of ground work before getting to this stage, it’s this point where the real work starts. The audit itself can be either planned (you’ve let the audit subjects know what will be happening) or unannounced (you turn up unexpected). My personal preference is for a planned audit, I just think it’s generally good manners to let someone know in advance, plus there’s always that chance the person and/or information you need won’t be available if you just rock up.

Audit is one of those words that have an unnerving ability to strike fear into people, just by mentioning it. You say audit and visions of hordes upon hordes of auditors lined up with clipboards and disconcerting looks across their faces are conjured. These humourless souls are just waiting to find faults and they’ll stop at nothing until they find them.

Except that’s not really what audit is about, far from it. Yes, audits are about identifying areas for improvement but they’re also about identifying areas of good practice. In this blog I’ll explain why we undertake audits and hopefully demystify them along with a bit of jargon busting.

I don’t smoke but I think I need to make something clear and get it out in the open - I am a smoker, there I have said it. I absolutely love smoking; I have for years smoked cigarettes, “roll ups”, cigars and even for a time a pipe (it was a phase).

Using the calendar/diary in Outlook

If you’re anything like me, using email on a day to day basis is now a fundamental and huge part of your daily work routine. We use it for emailing internally, external clients and safely transferring information; some of us may even say we use it too much at times.

Working in the IT team, we often see people using Outlook, but we see them using only the very basics and missing out on some very helpful features that would really help save them time in their daily work.

I’ve written up a few helpful tips below, but as I’m sure you can appreciate, there’s 100s more on top. If this Blog is something that people find useful and is of help, we can start pushing more of these out to you on a regular basis.

We are all aware of the headline in the news telling the powerful stories of Organ Donors yet only 32% of us have registered as an Organ Donor or hold a card. Last April we were all made aware of the inspiring story of newborn baby, Teddy Houlston, who died when he was under 2 hours old and whose kidneys were used to save an adults life.

You may remember that I wrote a blog from a carer’s perspective ‘Sandwich Generation’ to support Carers Week in June 2016, as my mum has Alzheimer’s disease. I was due to go on holiday in June, so my family decided that mum would need to be placed in a care home for the time I was away. I had spoken with the manager to enquire if mum could hoover her bedroom and clean her bathroom, as these are daily tasks. I was advised that this would not be possible but she could help with the folding of clothes from the tumble drier and dust. I was a little anxious and voiced my concerns about the skills mum may lose in the 2 weeks but understood that mum needed to be safe in our absence.

You may think that you are seeing an influx of Pirates in North East Lincolnshire this summer! But you would be wrong me hearties! It is just our great Health & Wellbeing Collaborative volunteers who have teamed up with the local sewing group to wear and give out free bandanas to raise awareness of the importance of protecting yourselves from the sun.

Cherry Ann, a volunteer with the Care Plus Group Health and Wellbeing Collaborative, provides an account of a recent educational trip for volunteers to Leeds University. The trip was facilitated by Cancer Research UK.

Diabetes week takes place from the 12th -18th June 2016. The theme for this year is “Setting the record straight”. Diabetes UK (Diabetes.org.uk) are using this theme to try and dispel many of the myths and misconceptions about diabetes that people have.

This week is Carers Week when we celebrate the work of all carers. I would like to share my experience of being a carer and part of the ‘Sandwich’ generation. This term was once used and I didn’t really understand it. Now I do. We support our children and our parents and the carer’s role is the bit in the middle!

Intermediate Care at Home provides short-term personal care and intensive re-enablement services to people in their own home for up to six weeks. Part of Care Plus Group and operating across North East Lincolnshire, the service focuses on promoting self-care and independence, enabling people to reach/regain an optimum level of independence. At a time when there is so much in the media about negative experiences of care, this team are an example of how high quality care is possible.

You may have heard a lot of talk recently about The Care Certificate and be wondering how it might affect you. Here, Linzi Brace, Training and Development Assistant Manager and lead for the Care Certificate implementation within CPG explains:

Do you remember when … you were young and never wanted to get out of bed – how you’d do anything to lay there for just another few minutes. But I bet you never thought that staying in bed (or a chair) for too long, in one position might be harmful to you?

Type 2 diabetes has been in the news again this week. The first 7 waves of the new National Diabetes Prevention Programme (NDPP) are due to commence later this year. The NDPP aims to slow down the rise in type 2 diabetes, in a bid to help prevent the many complications that can be associated with diabetes. The programme is aimed at people who are at risk of developing the condition and will help to reduce the £8.8billion that the NHS spends each year on type 2 diabetes.

Okay so it may not be this weekend’s winning lottery numbers, the number for the man/women of your dreams or the best takeaway in the world but by the end of this article I need to convince you to save a number to your phone.

With spring just around the corner, is it time to put a spring in your step to shed those extra winter pounds? Did you know that losing just 5% of your weight can reduce your risk of Type 2 Diabetes by up to 50%. If your weight is 13stone this would mean losing around 9lbs. Easier said than done, maybe, but here are a couple of tips to get you started….

Eight women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every day in the UK and it is the most common cancer in women under 35. However, 1 in 3 of 25-29 year olds do not take up their smear test invitation with the uptake falling year on year.

Dementia – Umh, where do I start, well, until about 3 years ago I can honestly say I knew nothing about this “word”. Then, in my role as Training & Development Co-ordinator, I was asked to become involved in some training that was being delivered by our experts in CPG, that’s when the rollercoaster of involvement, learning, discovering, challenges, emotions and life changing experience’s began.

Not Home Alone was formed in January 2014 by 4 people wanting to make a difference to those aged 65 and over living in Northern Lincolnshire and who spend Christmas Day, which can be the loneliest time of the year, on their own. Their first event was Christmas Day 2014 when they invited 60 people to lunch. They received fantastic feedback from their guests and amazing support from local businesses, organisations, schools and individuals. They are now preparing for Christmas 2015 when they hope to be joined by 100 people who would otherwise spend Christmas Day on their own.

Fourteen Top Tips when Drinking to Stay Sociable and Safe this Festive Season

The holidays are drawing ever closer and the party season is upon us. It’s the time for festivities and cheer with our friends and family and bringing good times aplenty. Chances may be that the drinks may be flowing, so I wanted to share my top tips to stay safe when drinking, so a great night doesn’t turn into a regretful night. It goes without saying; before you start drinking, be sure that you know that you can stop before things go too far.

18 months ago, Care Plus Group senior management team got their heads together and started looking at ways of making our workforce more efficient and ways in which we could save time and money. There was a light bulb moment from the team, suggesting, “Why don’t we make our nurses more mobile?”

As we approach the end of another November and I am once again sporting a rather fetching (in my eyes) moustache I thought I would put pen to paper to outline why this face fuzz matters. This is certainly not to prolong my marriage as my Wife hates the look of it and has admitted her heart sinks when she realises it is that time of year again. So why do tens of thousands of men, all over the world change their morning shaving routines for 30 days in the noble cause of “Movember”.

For my sins the maintenance and indeed extension of ISO 9001:2008 across Care Plus Group is something that I’m heavily involved in. So what? I hear you cry. Well that’s part of the problem I face on a daily basis, ISO has the danger of becoming a bit of a dark art in that no-one understands it, nor do they particularly want to. The biggest challenge is demystifying it!

To mark this year’s Worldwide Stop Pressure Ulcer Day on Thursday 19th November, Michelle Webb met with the Care Plus Group Skin Integrity Team (Georgina McKay, Val Carpenter and Sarah Bagley) to find out what they would be doing to mark this year’s event and why it is so important.

The health sector is rife with strange job titles and it can be very confusing for those receiving care (and their families) exactly who does what.

My role is an Assistant Practitioner in the Rapid Response Team. So what is an Assistant Practitioner, how are we different to traditional healthcare assistants or support workers?

The main difference is in the level of knowledge and skill we have to deliver health and social care to people. We have a required level of knowledge and skill beyond that of the traditional healthcare assistant or support worker. We are able to deliver elements of health and social care and undertake clinical work in domains that have previously only been within the remit of registered professionals. The Assistant Practitioner may transcend professional boundaries.

Death is not usually a topic of conversation around the dinner table or preferably at the bedside of an ailing relative, however sadly on occasion this has to happen. Regardless of whether death is seen as just something else to arrange in the grand scheme of life or whether you would prefer not to face it until it knocks on your door, the inevitable truth is no one escapes it!

How I reach out to the ‘difficult to reach’ – an interview with Jo, Sexual Health Outreach Worker with Foundations Substance Misuse Services.

First off, let me tell you a little bit about Jo. Jo is the Sexual Health Outreach Worker who is based at Foundations Substance Misuse Services, in North East Lincolnshire. Jo has been working in sexual health outreach for over a decade and has a vast experience and knowledge of her field of work. She has kindly agreed to chat to me and give me an interview, telling me a little bit about herself and the role she plays.

The population of the country at the last count was approximately 64 million; this figure is set to rise by 2027 to an estimated 27 million! As you probably appreciate your health and care services are already under strain to try to provide support to meet your needs.